


Enough

by MadameRed



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Complete, Explicit Consent, Fluff, Happy Ending, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, Soft Kisses, bottom!shiro, but he is tired please let him get what he wants, consent is sexy and lance is the sexiest, don't kinkshame him for it, honestly they're just really cute, lance the blind man, let shiro get pampered 2k18, light langst, lovemaking, not that kind you fool, pidge the very exhausted girl, pining shiro, ps there is a little mention of background kidge so you can fite me on that one, shiro basically worships lance, shiro is incredibly tenacious, shiro the giant puppy, the patience of a saint, top!lance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-14 05:18:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13000692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameRed/pseuds/MadameRed
Summary: Shiro is in love with a blissfully unaware Lance, and so he decides to try everything he can to make Lance see just how much he's loved. Lance remains, of course, oblivious, much to Shiro's dismay.This is a love story of how the leader of Voltron goes about wooing a fellow paladin. Well, trying to, anyway. Lance always seems to be looking the other direction; Shiro just needs to find the thing that will turn Lance's gaze toward him.Explicit rating applies only to chapter two. Chapter one is rated T.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> god it's like he's fighting a radiohead song.

Shiro’s eyes tracked Lance, as they always did, as he danced across the training deck, weaving and dodging around Keith’s and Pidge’s relentless assaults. The three of them sparred with long training staves, the loud crack of them connecting with one another interspersed only occasionally with the softer thud of them slapping against an exposed thigh or across the backs of shoulders. Pidge and Keith swung at Lance in tandem, and Shiro sucked in a soft breath as Lance bent himself in half and slipped between them like he was doing the limbo, his lips set in a thin line of concentration. He planted the butt of his staff against the ground and shoved away as Keith whipped his own stave around in a counter attack. The end of Keith’s stave barely missed Lance’s chest, but it was a miss nonetheless. Shiro watched Keith’s brow crinkle, though he didn’t have a chance to dwell on the failed attack, because Lance was advancing on the both of them, twirling his stave like he was in colour guard. 

Keith brought his stave up and blocked the attacks while Pidge attempted to jab at Lance’s legs. So quickly that Shiro’s eyes couldn’t quite process it, Lance delivered two strong hits to Keith’s stave and then cracked down on the top of Pidge’s, then whirled and hit the bottom of it and pushed, forcing her to spin it upward. He brought his stave down and swept her feet out from under her, then brought it across her chest so that she stumbled against Keith. Keith maintained his balance, but just barely. As he fought to stay upright, he wrapped an arm around Pidge and took a step back, eyes going wide when he felt his ankle collide with Lance’s stave, which was poised to knock his feet from beneath him.

Shiro exhaled a soft breath he’d been holding and he felt his chest swell and grow tight. At first, Lance retained a stoic expression, and then his character fell into an easy grin. He stepped forward and held Keith steady while Pidge righted herself, scowling. Lance grasped Keith’s arm, and his eyes crinkled up as his grin widened. Keith smirked back at him, returning the friendly grip.

“You’re a quick learner with these staffs,” he said. Lance shrugged, but the smile didn’t leave his face. 

“I guess since my bayard took this shape, it’s come to me a little easier. It’s nice to have something more hand-to-hand so I can actually be useful in a fight,” he said, patting the blue bayard by his side. 

 _You could never see a day of combat and you’d still be so invaluable_ , Shiro thought to himself. 

“About time,” Keith joked. Shiro knew it was spoken completely in jest, that Keith knew exactly how important Lance was to the team, but when he saw the corner of Lance’s mouth twitch so minutely, he wanted to pull him away and shower him in every kind truth the boy deserved. 

But he wasn’t really a boy anymore. They’d been in space for approximately two years now, give or take some months. It was difficult to keep track of Earth time in deep space, probably trillions and quadrillions of light years away from their home. Lance was probably twenty two, if Pidge’s Earth calendar was even somewhat accurate. He’d grown taller and broader, his musculature lean but strong. His blue eyes still shone with mirth, but layers of the shit they’d all seen left a haze sometimes. Shiro wanted nothing but kind truths and a gentle, quiet life for Lance, but that wasn’t in their cards. 

And somehow falling in love was? 

At least, it was one of Shiro’s cards. A colourful tarot card with Lance’s face on it, holding a bow in one hand and a knife in the other, fell into his palm maybe a year ago. He held onto it, barely able to comprehend what it meant, until he looked up and saw Lance. Lance, pestering Pidge as she worked on a new upgrade for the Green lion. Lance, sprawled on the couch with Hunk and talking about their time in the garrison. Lance, brushing out Allura’s hair and humming a song to himself. Lance, laying down lightning fast cover fire to keep Keith safe as he hacked away at enemy sentries. Lance, head bent and frown in place as he and Coran worked out their next plan of attack.

And he’s absolutely one of the most beautiful people Shiro has ever seen, on top of everything else. What chance did Shiro ever have, anyway?

Was it inappropriate? Sure. Shiro was a leader, the head of Voltron. For all intents and purposes, a commanding officer, despite not being that much older than Lance. But Shiro was nothing if not good at learning, and one constant lesson that kept cropping up no matter where they were in the galaxy was that when love presented itself, one should seize it and hold fast. 

So as Keith and Pidge made their way to the weapon racks to put their staves back, Shiro crossed the room, grabbing a fresh water bottle and towel and approached Lance. He was leaning on his stave, staring at nothing. Shiro tossed the towel at him. Lance startled, but his reflexes were quick, and he caught the towel before it hit the floor. He blinked up at Shiro, and his face relaxed into a small smile.

“That was amazing to watch, Lance. You were incredible,” Shiro complimented.

Lance inhaled sharply, his eyes careful and his lips quirking into the barest of smiles. 

“Oh, thanks Shiro.” He took the water bottle that Shiro offered, uncapping it and taking several long drinks from it. He brought the bottle away from his lips with a smack, dragging the back of his hand across his mouth. “Did you want to spar?” Lance offered, raising one eyebrow slightly. Shiro wondered why he’d ask like that, like he was confused about something, but then he realised that he probably was staring at Lance with a rather stupid look on his face. He blinked and shook his head. 

“Oh! No, I just got done hand to hand with Hunk and he really didn’t go easy on me,” he chuckled. Lance smiled at him.

“Okay. Well, I’m going to go wash up,” he said. The smile on his face fell a little, and Shiro tipped his head to the side almost imperceptibly. But Lance had started walking away from him already, his long legs carrying him away from Shiro quickly. 

“Maybe tomorrow, Lance?” Shiro called, taking a step toward him. Lance paused, twisting around and looking back at Shiro. “Maybe you could show me some, uh, techniques tomorrow?” he asked hopefully. The small half smile graced Lance’s lips again, and he gave a short nod.

“Sure, Shiro.” He gave a little wave with his staff, and then turned away again. Shiro watched him walk away with more than a little wistfulness in his gaze. This was going to be harder than he thought.

—

The next opportunity Shiro found was a week later. Allura had ordered the Paladins to each find an activity to do by themselves, that didn’t involve even being in the same room as the others. Her purpose behind this was that everyone needed time to move in and out of their own head and center themselves. She insisted on it, and finally convinced them by assuring them that she and Coran would be doing the same. 

Hunk left to tinker with the training bots, and Pidge cooped herself up in the Green Lion’s hangar. Keith took Red out for a joyride, Coran was in the kitchen, and Allura found a corner of the ship’s small library and curled away there. Lance had waved at his teammates and then wandered off down a corridor, hands stuffed into the pockets of the jacket that somehow still fit, though it didn’t hang so loosely on his frame anymore. Shiro grabbed a datapad and cast a sidelong glance at the blue paladin as he left the commons. He hefted the datapad in his hand, pursing his lips at it once Lance wandered out of sight. He thought about opening the reader Allura helped Pidge develop, so that he could learn Altean. He toyed with the idea of poring over the latest reports from their previous mission. He thought about training. 

“Nope,” he said aloud to himself, tossing the datapad to the couch. He stretched his arms upward and set a course for his bedroom. He left the door open, but turned the lights off. He toed off his boots and swapped out his black clothes for softer, looser fitting lounge clothes. He pressed down the slight feeling of “you should be doing something productive!” and squirmed around beneath the blankets until he was completely comfortable. He allowed himself a quiet, happy sigh before he threw an arm over his eyes and committed himself properly to a nap. 

He had no nightmares.

He was grateful for it, but there were also no pleasant dreams, either, which meant that when he woke up, it seemed like only five minutes had elapsed. But there was Hunk in his doorway, hands clean but arms covered in grease and a few small scratches. He leaned against the doorframe, smirking playfully at Shiro. 

“Comfy?”

“Mmm,” Shiro mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. His voice was rough from sleep, and he arched his back, satisfied that it didn’t pop or creak. “-time is it?”

“Almost dinner time,” Hunk answered with a shrug. He ignored Shiro’s sleepy grin - there were no clocks in space, ticking the time by in increments of twelve. Asking for the time had become something of an inside joke between them, and a way to remember that Earth was still a part of them. “Everyone is back except you and Lance. I found you first, but…”

“But what?”

“Coran is cooking and I just don’t trust him in my kitchen, man,” Hunk sighed, crossing his arms. Shiro chuckled and threw back the blankets, suppressing a shiver at the lack of warmth. He didn’t really want to leave his bed, which was rather comfortable despite its stark appearance, but the thought of seeing Lance spurred him into action. 

“Go take care of Coran, I’ll find Lance.” He stuffed his feet into his slippers, the Black Lion ones that Lance had found and insisted that he wear. He wished Hunk luck in the kitchen and wandered off to search for Lance. Logically, he made his way to Lance’s room, but found it empty. The bedsheets were rumpled and on it lay his signature green jacket, his jeans, socks, and shirt. So he was running around naked somewhere. Great. Shiro cleared his throat with a little cough and turned away from Lance’s room, making his way down to the Blue Lion’s hangar. Blue stood tall and proud, still and cold. Shiro concentrated on his connection to his own lion - he’d discovered that, due to his bond with Black, as the leader of the lions, he was able to sense, to some small degree, the other lions as well. Red was still rumbling happily from her recent outing with Keith, but Green, Yellow, and Blue were silent. Lance hadn’t been through to see her this afternoon.

Shiro left the hangar and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his lounge pants, wandering up the corridors of the castleship at random until he found himself at the observatory. He stepped into the room and looked around, and sure enough, found Lance. The blue paladin had earbuds in his ears and was dressed in all black yoga clothes - a tank top and black cropped pants that stopped just below his knees.  _Tight_  black pants, Shiro noted, swallowing. Tight and stretchy looking. Well. He was about to say something, see if he could avoid startling Lance too badly while still getting his attention, but Lance folded his legs and sunk to the floor, his back to Shiro. He laid down on his back with his arms flat on the ground, and then brought his legs straight up in the air. He held them here for a breath or two, then slowly eased them down over his face, lifting his back from the ground, keeping his legs straight and resting all of his weight on his shoulders. Shiro’s eyes widened as he watched Lance lower his feet to the floor  _behind his head_. Shiro covered his mouth with his hand, feeling both awe over this incredible skill and embarrassment for the slew of less than appropriate thoughts that stumbled across his mind. Lance held the pose for one minute, then two, and was approaching three minutes when he finally lowered his legs, slowly, back down to the floor, where he remained still for several minutes after.

He finally sat up, dislodging the buds from his ears and twisting his neck from side to side. Shiro watched him shake himself out, sitting cross legged on the floor. He smiled a little, and then stepped further into the room.

“Lance, there you are!” 

The blue paladin turned his head around quickly, his eyes going wide. His bangs stuck a little to his forehead, which was beaded with a fine layer of sweat. “Shiro!” he said, his voice soft with surprise. “How long have you been there?”

“I just got here,” Shiro lied smoothly. He didn’t make a habit of lying to his team, but he really didn’t want to embarrass Lance by telling him that he’d been staring at him while he bent himself into impossible contortions. “Hunk sent me to say dinner’s about ready.” This mollified Lance, who twisted to his feet easily, as if he hadn’t just been pretzeled up in a position Shiro didn’t think a human body could physically attain. Lance left his yoga mat where it was and padded over to Shiro, barefoot. Feeling bold, Shiro extended his elbow to Lance with a grin. 

“Hunk sent me an escort? Aw, he’s fond of me after all,” Lance joked. Shiro winked at him.

“Like a personal valet,” he said. Lance chuckled quietly to himself and bumped Shiro’s elbow playfully with his own, instead of taking his arm. Shiro dropped his arm to his side and hid his slight disappointment by asking Lance how his personal yoga time had gone.

Damn.

—

The marketplace of the planet Juuyu was a vast, colourful series of stores, stalls, booths, and carts. The winding streets were paved with the planet’s trademark glittering stones, shimmering and iridescent in the early evening light. People from innumerable planets milled about the market streets, haggling and bartering and hocking their wares. The planet was a crossroads, a peaceful meeting point for a half dozen galaxies and hundreds of different planets. Long ago, when the lions had first emerged from King Alfor’s lab, they and their original paladins had rescued Juuyu from a fleet of pirates that had been laying siege to the planet for several decades. The denizens of Juuyu, which included several merchant princes from the neighbouring planet of Kentar, were endlessly grateful to the paladins for their rescue. Statues of the lions were erected all over the planet, guardians and reminders of the great deeds they accomplished. Native Juuyan people typically lived extraordinarily long lives, and many remembered the events of those three days well enough to continue telling the tale of the lions of Voltron. 

When the lions returned at the behest of Coran, a chaos broke out across the planet. The oldest of the Juuyans wept at the sight of their saviours returning to them once more, and every other person, whether native or a visiting merchant, gaped in reverence and awe as their planet’s greatest legends landed near the King’s palace. The paladins were quite used to gratitude and respect at this point in their careers, but the level of deference and veneration they received from these citizens, especially the elders, floored them. Hunk wiped tears from his eyes as one of the elder Juuyans fell to her knees, weeping and clutching a pendant around her neck that looked suspiciously like a yellow lion, with the most serene smile on her face. Their lions, for their part, roared proudly in unison and then settled down onto their bellies, resting comfortably and completely at ease, which was something they never did outside of their hangars. The paladins had barely begun making their way to the King’s palace when the Juuyans began placing flowers by the enormous paws of the lions, some even being so bold as to place their hands upon the cool metal reverently and gazing up at them, tears in their eyes and words of praise and thanks on their lips. Shiro could hear the happy rumblings from each of the lions in the back of his mind, and though he was surprised how comfortable the lions were here, he had a feeling that they needn’t worry over their lions on this planet. 

They were greeted by the King at the doors to the palace, who dropped to his knees before them and gazed at them with the same peaceful adoration that the rest of his citizens did. They were treated as gods, as well as Allura and Coran. The King insisted on showing the paladins to their quarters himself, all the while sharing with them the story of how the lions had prevailed over the pirates and saved Juuyu, its citizens, and their livelihood so many thousands of years ago. The apartments, which took up the entire east wing of the palace, had been built specifically for the paladins, who had apparently returned several times to maintain a relationship with Juuyu. The apartments were lavishly decorated and maintained through these last ten thousand years - there was not a speck of dust to be seen, the tapestries were vibrant and free of rot, and there were fresh flowers in every vase they came across. Lion statues and accents of red, green, blue, yellow, and black were everywhere, tasteful and elegant and opulent. 

They were into their third day on the planet, and Shiro was on a mission. He’d heard from one of the servants in the palace that a restaurant had opened in the marketplace, run by a Kentaran shapeshifter that had been to Earth seventy odd years ago. He had brought back a few recipes that were wildly popular here. She said that the food was adjusted a little to better suit the palates of the citizens and visitors, but that he had tried to keep it as natural to Earth as he could. Thanking her profusely, Shiro quickly left the palace and made his way to the marketplace. 

He found the building, which didn’t look at all like it served anything from Earth, but he entered it and requested a menu from the flabbergasted and pleased server. Helpful little hand-drawn pictures accompanied every item, and Shiro studied the menu for nearly fifteen minutes. It was an expansive menu, and contained dishes from twenty-two different countries on Earth. He pulled out his phone, or the space equivalent of a phone, and began to compile a list of everything he was going to order. He couldn’t leave this building without taking back massive quantities of Earth food with him for his team. Food goo had gotten old a very long time ago. He ordered sushi, fried cakes, fruit pastries, pizza, lo mein and vegetables, shrimp-esque pasta, several pints of ice cream, odd looking square hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and several burritos. And then his eyes fell upon one dish on the menu, and a grin spread across his face. He ordered two bowls, and graciously accepted the help carrying it all back to his friends. 

He found Hunk, Keith, and Pidge first. Keith and Pidge were napping in front of a projection-movie of the Legend of the Lions. He opened a pizza under Keith’s nose - it had been his absolute favourite back home, and it didn’t take long for him to breathe deeply with a serene smile on his face and then sit bolt upright, startling Pidge from her slumber. The red paladin stared around with wide eyes, and then scrambled for the pizza, demanding to know where Shiro had acquired it. Pidge clamored after him, a wide grin on her face, reaching for a slice with twitching fingers. 

“Oh my god I love you so much,” she mumbled, her mouth full of cheese pizza and grease. Shiro chuckled, raising an eyebrow as Keith set two pieces on top of one another and then crammed half of it into his mouth at once. 

“Lance is rubbing off on you,” he mused. Keith narrowed his eyes at him with a look that very clearly said ‘I would flip you off right now but you’re a bringer of pizza and I can’t possibly be bothered with anything but a food coma right now’. Or at least that’s how Shiro read it. Maybe Lance was rubbing off on him, too. 

_Soon, maybe._

Clearing his throat, he indicated that he was going to find Hunk and Lance and bring them in. Keith and Pidge both made muffled noises of consent, entirely too busy with the pizza to even notice the rest of the food on the table, let alone Shiro backing out of the room with a bag in his hand. 

He called Hunk, as the yellow paladin was nowhere to be found in the palace. 

“What’s up, Shiro?” he answered.

“I found a restaurant that serves Earth food and bought half their stock. It’s in the media room with Keith and Pidge. They’re digging into the pizza now and -”

“ _Did you say pizza?_ ”Hunk asked seriously, his voice calm and tight. Shiro laughed.

“There’s sushi and pasta and burritos, too,” he said. There was a long pause, during which Shiro couldn’t hear anything, not even breathing.

“I love you, Shiro.”

“Hunk?” But there was radio silence on the other end, and when he looked at his space phone, the screen had gone dark again. Smiling to himself, he readjusted the bag in his hand and made his way to Lance’s room. 

The blue paladin had been, well, a little blue lately, and Shiro hoped that this surprise would cheer him up. He knocked on the door and stood quietly, though his mind was anything but patient. He had to physically restrain himself from rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet like a child waiting in line for a ride at their favourite theme park. A moment passed, and the door opened, revealing Lance, wearing a blue and gold silk robe and grey lounge pants. 

“Oh, hey Shiro,” he greeted, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “What’s up?” Shiro lifted the bag up.

“I have a surprise for you. Can I come in? Or we could go somewhere else?” he suggested. 

“We’re both already here,” Lance said, shrugging and stepping aside to let Shiro in. “And now that you said you have a surprise for me, I  _really_  need to know what it is.” He followed behind Shiro, peering at the bag. “Am I going to like it?” Shiro laughed.

“I hope so. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found it.” He set the bag down on a round, gilded table with three tall chairs around it. He pulled two tubular containers and lightweight wooden utensils from the bag and set them down on the table. The tubes of food had a flattened bottom so they sat on the table without rolling. Shiro grabbed one and popped the clips on the sides open and removed the lid, setting it aside. He placed the tube in front of Lance, slid him a fork, and said nothing.

Within the tube was a meal of rice and beans, interspersed with what looked like red peppers and onions. The rice was dark, but Shiro knew enough about the dish from Lance’s description to know that it was white rice stained by the black bean juice. It was aromatic and quickly filled the room. He glanced up at Lance; his eyes were wide and his mouth hung open slightly. He gripped the edge of the table and fell into one of the chairs, leaning forward before reaching out and grasping each end of the tube. 

“Where did you find this?” he asked, his voice wavering as he kept his eyes fixed on the meal in front of him. 

“One of the people in the palace told me about a restaurant that served Earth food, thought we’d like to check it out. I bought a ton of food; most of it is with Pidge, Keith, and Hunk, but I brought this specifically for you. I figured-”

“I haven’t had congri since before I left home for the Garrison,” Lance whispered. 

Shiro seated himself in the chair opposite Lance, resting his forearms on the table and picking at the cuticles on his left hand. “I was surprised to find it on the menu, and I remembered how fondly you spoke of it. I figured I’d bring it to you first before we went for the other food, in case you have to hide your disappointment if it’s terrible,” he said lightly. Lance looked up at him, his eyes wide and a little shiny.

“How could this possibly be terrible? I didn’t think I’d ever have this again,” he said, blinking rapidly. He ducked his head and grabbed up a fork, scooping some up and slowly, almost cautiously, bringing it to his mouth. After a few chews, his face split into a smile and he quickly rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his free hand. He swallowed, laughing and gasping for breath simultaneously. He quickly shoveled another two bites into his mouth, and he didn’t stop the next tears from slipping down his face. Shiro stared at him the whole time, content and happy knowing that he’d done something good for someone who deserved it and so much more. He watched every emotion flicker over Lance’s face. He recognized homesickness, having seen it in every person he’d been living with for the last two years. He saw melancholy, happiness, bittersweet memories for people who were probably mourning him. They all melted so seamlessly into one another, and they all came crashing around Shiro when Lance looked up at him and held his gaze. The air around them felt still and Shiro held his breath until Lance smiled at him again.

“How is it?” he asked quietly. Maybe it was a loaded question, but for the life of him he couldn’t think of anything else he could possibly say (because ‘dear god I love you more in this moment than I have ever loved anything’ didn’t seem appropriate). 

“It’s - it’s perfect. It’s a little different, like, it’s got this strange kind of papery texture to it at first, but I figure that’s just alien food for you, but it reminds me so much of mama’s homemade congri.” Lance jammed the fork into the rice and took another large bite, chewing quickly and swallowing. “I remember washing and cooking the beans with her when I was a kid, and then having to wait another half an hour after that until the rice was done cooking. It was  _torture_  for a six year old but it was so worth it and I-” he broke off his rambling, swiping his tears away again. “It’s nice to remember.”

Shiro sighed happily, hoping that he didn’t sound too dopey. He pushed the second tube of congri toward Lance with two fingers.

“Well, I brought a second serving of it. I’ve seen how you can pack food away. God only knows where you put it,” he joked, rolling his eyes. Lance laughed, loud and from his belly - Shiro hadn’t heard that laugh from him in a while, and he may have heaved another sappy sigh, but he wasn’t counting. 

“No, you eat it. Congri this good should be shared.” He nudged the tube back toward Shiro. He opened the container and picked up the wooden fork, taking his first bite of congri. Lance was right about the papery texture, but it didn’t take away from the flavour of the dish at all. Lance watched him knowingly. “Good, right?”

“It’s  _very_  good,” Shiro answered truthfully. He took another bite as Lance nodded sagely. 

They ate their meals in silence, punctuated only at first by a few sniffles from Lance. Shiro kept his eyes on Lance when he thought he could get away with it, when Lance was engrossed in his food and his mind was a hundred galaxies away. Lance finished first, setting his fork in the tube and holding onto the ends of it. 

“Thank you, Shiro,” he said quietly. Shiro was finishing the last bite of his food, bringing a napkin to his mouth and wiping at the corners of his lips. “I can’t… I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

“Then I’m happy.”

 _Even if you are_ super _dense._

—

A few weeks later, the lions all but limped into their hangars after a particularly hairy fight with a fleet of Galra ships, preceded by a vicious fight on a Galra infested planet. The paladins met briefly in the commons of the castleship, just to touch base with one another and Allura and Coran before turning in for a well deserved sleep. 

Shiro waited until everyone else had left the room before he took his leave as well, padding down the hallway that would lead to Lance’s room. He was sweaty, sore, bleeding, and gross, but he knew he needed to catch the blue paladin before he hopped into the shower and passed out face first in his bed. He approached the door to Lance’s room and knocked twice, holding his helmet in his hands, rubbing his thumb against the base of it. 

“Come in!” Lance’s muffled voice called out. The door slid open, revealing Lance only half dressed in his armour. He had taken off his breastplate and gloves, revealing the tight fitting black flight suit beneath. Shiro swallowed, hopefully inaudibly, at the sight of Lance’s broad shoulders and toned, lean waist. He looked up toward the door and offered Shiro a small, exhausted smile. 

“Hey, chief,” he greeted. “Long time no see.” Shiro chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“I just wanted to say, before you went to bed, that I, um, we, really counted on you back there, and you came through for us. We would have been done for without you,” he said. Lance smiled, faintly, and bent back over to remove his greaves and boots. 

“Oh, thanks, I guess,” he said, somewhat bashfully. Shiro shook his head, taking another step into Lance’s room. 

“I mean it. You provided rapid, consistent cover fire that allowed Pidge and Keith to get out of dodge, and then stayed behind to make sure the sentries couldn’t launch from their loading bay to come after us. We wouldn’t have made it out of there in one piece if it hadn’t been for you,” he said earnestly, as sincerely as he could. None of it was an exaggeration, of course; Lance had used every bit of his agility and decisive thinking to formulate the best tactics to get the team out of there safely. It was his own creative brilliance shining through, along with time spent with Coran going over ancient Altean military strategies. Shiro had been on the exterior of a building when Lance had begun barking orders through the comms, indicating when Keith and Pidge should move and which paths had already been cleared for them. Listening to the unwavering, hard edge Lance’s voice had adopted had, at the time, filled him with pride. Thinking back on them now, they sent bolts of arousal down Shiro’s body. 

“I guess?” Lance set his armour in the storage pod in his room, closing the door and activating the castle’s automated care system, which would provide small repairs to the armour and thoroughly clean it. He scratched the back of his head, staring at the pod instead of looking at Shiro. “I mean, I didn’t do anything that you or any of the others wouldn’t do, too. I’m just glad you guys made it out of there without breaking any bones.” He turned to Shiro then, a weak grin on his face. “No stints in the healing pods  after sounds like a successful mission to me!” 

Shiro kind of wanted to put his own head through a wall. 

—

 _Maybe I haven’t been romantic enough_ , Shiro thought to himself. The only problem being that deep space didn’t lend many opportunities for great romantic scenery. The novelty of meteor showers had worn off for them, especially when they had to pilot their lions  _through_  one. Sunsets and sunrises only happened on planets with normal suns. The training deck wasn’t exactly the ideal place for a picnic, either. He wished they’d been to a planet with a beach that wasn’t toxic, but they’d had no such luck. Lance had talked on and on about growing up by the beach, sitting with his toes in the sand when the water and wind became too cool for swimming, and Shiro didn’t even have the means for a simple date to a beach.

He paced in his room until he stopped suddenly. He pinched his chin and debated on whether or not this most recent idea was a good one. Placing his trust in this person was risky. She was ruthless, and collected secrets on people like they were pogs. However, the sooner the proverbial scales tipped in his favour, the sooner her dirt on him would lose its power.

He had no choice.

He needed Pidge.

Fortunately, she just rolled her eyes and thanked him for finally busting a move on Lance, as watching him pine away had been borderline physically painful for her. Shiro leveled her with a flat gaze and implied to her that her dance with Keith was also growing stale to watch.

“That’s neither here nor there,” she dismissed with a wave of her hand, though he hadn’t missed the way a flush crept up her neck. “All I have to do is give him a sweet ass knife or something and it’ll be fine. I’m just waiting for the right moment.”

“And this is my right moment. Or, I hope it is.” Shiro chewed on his lip. Pidge nudged him with her elbow.

“This is as cheesy and romantic as we can possibly achieve on a castle floating in deep space. Lance loves romance. He’ll trip out of his pants and into your arms in no time, big guy,” she said, wiggling her brows at him. Shiro put his palm on her face and shoved her away as she cackled. 

“I just want him to stop being so thick headed and  _see_  that I’m trying to-”

“Woo him? Court him? Bend him over and-”

“Pidge!”

Working to set things up in secret was a nightmare for Shiro. He was using the observatory, which was where Lance liked to practice his yoga. He and Pidge alternated in keeping the blue paladin busy with menial, mind-numbing tasks and lots of kicked puppy looks. Actually setting things up was only troublesome because of the lewd jokes Pidge made every few minutes. She’d point to various control panels and point out how she thought Lance would look splayed out across them. As she tinkered with the projector, she mimed crude gestures with her thumb, forefinger, and a screwdriver. Testing the projector had been even worse - she made shadow puppets of Shiro and Lance, making exaggerated kissing noises. 

“Will you cut that out and turn the damn thing on?” Shiro sighed.

“Sure!” she chirped. Pidge circled around to a spare laptop she’d set up and navigated to the projector program, and then clicked play. “Whoops.”

Shiro watched in horror as two men - two oiled up firefighters - began kissing each other passionately, grinding their hips together and moaning loudly, projected on the wall of the observatory. He whirled around and glared as fiercely as he could at Pidge, who was grinning wickedly. 

“Just a little inspiration,” she said sweetly. 

“I hate you,” he mumbled dispassionately. 

The castleship’s version of evening approached, the lights within dimming just slightly. Shiro glanced up at them, then around the room. It was set up as well as they were going to get it, he supposed. The projector was ready to go, and the  _right_  video was queued to play at the press of a button. 

“I don’t think there’s much more to be done, except hope it goes well,” Shiro muttered, carding a hand through his hair. Pidge stepped up next to him, her tool bag packed up again. She wound her arm through his, resting her head against his metal bicep.

“This is perfect, Shiro. Lance is going to be over the moon for it. And if he’s not, then he’s a pod person and we should start looking for the real Lance,” she said reassuringly. Shiro reached across with his other hand and squeezed Pidge’s arm gently. 

“Thanks, Pidge.”

“No problem, Shiro.”

Dinner was as normal an affair as any, even if Shiro felt like he was sweating buckets. Pidge chattered happily with Keith and Hunk. She tried drawing Lance into the conversation as well, but the blue paladin remained quiet, claiming exhaustion from cleaning the healing pods that afternoon. Shiro felt a pang of guilt; Pidge must have seen his somewhat panicked look and gave him a small smile to reassure him. His breath hitched up again when Lance announced his departure, not even halfway through his meal. Shiro gripped his spork tightly as he watched Lance retreat from the kitchen.

“Oh, Shiro, didn’t you want to go over that new training routine with us early tomorrow morning?” Pidge piped up. Keith and Hunk blinked at her, then looked to Shiro expectantly. She lowered her gaze and gave him a pointed look. “The one you read in a book last night - you told me earlier.” Shiro blinked, his mouth forming a soft ‘oh’ of recognition.

“Yeah, that - that’s right. I forgot all about it,” he said quickly. “It’s a technique that focuses on footwork over immediate assault and I think we could all benefit from it. It’s also supposed to improve fine motor skills and enable you to maneuver terrain better,” he fabricated quickly. It didn’t sound like complete bullshit, at least. Keith nodded and Hunk shrugged.

“I’m down for that,” Keith said. “Shouldn’t you have said something when Lance was still in the room, though?” He looked at Pidge. The green paladin shrugged shamelessly.

“Whoops.” Shiro made a show of rolling his eyes. He pushed back from the table, barely having started on his own meal.

“I’ll go tell him.” Before he was dragged back into any conversation, he strode from the room, doing his best to not seem like he was sprinting after Lance. 

He might have to sprint after him, he thought. Where did he get to so quickly? Shiro jogged down the corridor and took a hard left, toward Lance’s room. Christ, he was quick. He was already approaching his door, ready to retreat for the evening.

“Lance, hold up!” he called. Lance paused and turned around, an unreadable expression crossing his face before he relaxed into a small smile. 

“What’s up, Shiro?” he asked, leaning against his door. Shiro jogged up to him lightly, stopping a few feet in front of him.

“Did you, uh, have anything planned for the night?” he asked. Lance shrugged.

“Not really. Was gonna read a little, but nothing I can’t put off if you need help,” he offered. Shiro shook his head.

“No, I don’t need help with anything. There was just something I wanted to show you, if you felt up for a little company for a while,” he said, trying not to sound bashful or nervous. He didn’t think he was doing a very good job. Lance didn’t answer right away; his crossed arms tightened just a little, causing Shiro to take an involuntary step back. He breathed in and then nodded once, and Shiro relaxed a little. He offered Lance his most sincere smile, hoping to put the other man at ease, then motioned for him to follow. Lance walked beside him, half a step behind him. Shiro shortened his pace a little, feeling a little guilty for how tired Lance was if his long legs weren’t keeping pace with Shiro’s own stride. 

Lance remained quiet, and while Shiro was a little concerned by his silence, he didn’t mind not explaining that he was taking Lance on a surprise date. Rather to just let him walk into the observatory and be, as Pidge said, totally blown away and swept up in Shiro’s romance. Shiro’s expectations were a little less gilded than Pidge’s fantasy, but he hoped the sentiment was there, at least. Best case scenario, Lance would fling himself into his arms and they’d cuddle, and maybe kiss, for the rest of the evening. Worst? A firm handshake from Lance as Shiro tore his hair out and started back at square one. Shiro firmly pushed thoughts of the latter from his mind, focusing on what this evening really meant: something nice done for Lance. Whether Lance ever reciprocated his feelings or not, he still deserved kindness and someone to care about him. If he kept trying and failing as he had been, despite Lance’s proclamations at desiring a cliché romance, then he would, happily or not, resign himself to Lance’s platonic gratitude. Lance deserved the world, a glittering, magical, gold-dipped world filled with everything that made him smile and nothing else. He deserved happiness, and if Shiro could give him that, however small the doses out here in space may be, then he would. Always, without fail.

Steeling himself, he pressed open the door to the observatory and motioned for Lance to step inside first. Lance side eyed him with a smile, but stepped inside and glanced around in the darkness. Shiro entered the observatory and made his way to Pidge’s dimly glowing laptop. The lights to the observatory were temporarily controlled by the laptop, thanks to Pidge’s genius, and he slid the bar on the laptop screen up until the lights were glowing at a dim, warm ambiance. Blankets were piled up on the observatory couch, which had been turned to face the far wall. To the couch’s right, the wide, tall windows displayed the black and silvery vastness of space, barely creeping past them as the castleship floated without much direction. A small tray of sweet tea and two cups were positioned on the table near the laptop. The projector was mounted on the ceiling and there were speakers fixed in the corners of the room. Shiro looked up at Lance, who had stalled in the middle of the room and was staring at Shiro with that unreadable expression on his face again. 

“Come on, sit down,” Shiro said, gesturing to the couch. Lance moved around and sat, pulling a blanket around and hugging it to his chest, his feet restless on the ground. 

“What is all this?” he asked quietly, his eyes darting from the pitcher of tea to the laptop to Shiro.

“Just something I thought you’d enjoy,” Shiro answered, pouring two glasses of tea. He pressed a button on the laptop, then stepped around the table, handing one to Lance and settling down beside him. The projector flickered to life, and before the image displayed on the wall, the sounds of a seagull screeched through the speakers. 

Lance startled, glancing around, eyes wide, grasping his glass of tea. A video slowly began to fade into view on the wall in front of them, and Lance’s gaze snapped to it immediately. 

“Oh my god,” he murmured, sitting forward. “Is that-”

“I don’t know if it’s your Varadaro Beach, but it’s  _a_  beach,” Shiro said. He took a sip of tea, settling back on the couch to better watch Lance’s reaction. The video looked as though it had been taken on a camera track, like they used at football games. It moved slowly and stopped intermittently, going up and down a white coastline with foamy blue waves crashing upon it. Gulls dipped and screamed in and out of the picture, and the sounds of the waves ebbed and flowed with their image on the wall. In the far distance, a sailboat bobbed along, a speck of white on the horizon line. The sky was blue, barely broken by pale, wispy white clouds floating high in the sky. The video was picturesque, and between the video and the accompanying sounds, he could almost smell the salty sea air. He fixed his gaze on Lance, and was surprised to see the young man’s jaw clenched tightly, the skin by his temple rippling as he ground his teeth. A tear slipped down his cheek, racing toward his chin and then falling onto the blanket.

Shiro sat forward and gently touched his fingers to Lance’s back. “Lance, what’s wrong?”

The blue paladin didn’t answer immediately; he took a deep breath, inhaling shakily as he brought a hand up and swiped at his tears. He turned to face Shiro, his face still fixed with that unreadable expression that perplexed the hell out of Shiro. 

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice quiet but firm. Shiro furrowed his brow.

“What do you mean?” he asked. “I thought you’d like this.” He tried to hide the hurt in his voice. Lance gestured, almost accusingly, at the projected video.

“You do realize what this all looks like, right?” he demanded. Shiro glanced at the video, but Lance huffed in annoyance. “Not just the video, Shiro. The tea, the blankets, the lights. This looks like a date!” He hissed the last word, his voice dropping low. Shiro sat further forward quickly, his eyes wide and hopeful.

“You - you think this is a date?” he asked, praying to every god he could think of that his words didn’t sound like he was mocking. Lance crossed his arms and frowned at Shiro.

“If it looks like a duck and sounds like a duck,” he snapped. Shiro’s face split into a grin and he scooted closer to Lance, feeling like he was about to float right off the couch in happiness. This is where it should be going. He could finally tell Lance that he’d been trying to court him, that he wanted to be with him. 

“Then it’s a duck,” he finished for Lance. “Or, a date. But yes.” Shiro tilted his head back and let out a sigh of relief, one he’d been waiting to release for nearly a year. “God, I’m so glad you knew what this was right away. I’ve been trying to get your attention for  _months_ , if I’d known this is what it would take, I’d have-”

“ _You what?”_

Lance’s voice was hardly a whisper, and even then it wavered pitifully. Shiro ceased his victory immediately upon hearing those shattered words leave Lance’s mouth. Lance looked like he’d been stabbed by Shiro instead of courted by him. His blue eyes were wide and glassy with unshed tears, and his breath came shallowly and raggedly. His arms had unfolded and fallen to his sides, limp and completely without any of the energy that Shiro was so often used to seeing in him. Shiro reached for one of Lance’s hands but stopped when he saw him flinch. He sighed.

“Of course I have, Lance. I’ve - I mean, I’ve been  _trying_ , anyway. I’m not very.. not very good at this whole dating thing, but I’ve been trying to show you how much you mean to me,” he confessed, feeling stupid. “I guess I wasn’t being romantic enough before, which is why I had Pidge help me go all out with this.” He waved a hand about, indicating the entire observatory setup. Lance’s expression didn’t change, and his gaze didn’t leave Shiro’s face. 

“You.” The fracturing Lance’s voice cut into Shiro as deeply as any blade might. “You did… this? You - you  _like me_?” he gasped out. Shiro grabbed at Lance’s hands, taking them both into his before he could pull away.

“Lance, I - what did you think I’d been trying these past several months, singling you out, following you around like you’re the only lifeboat on board?” he asked gently. 

“I thought you were being  _nice!”_ Lance gasped. His hands tightened into fists in Shiro’s grasp, and his eyes began to stutter back and forth, as if he were looking for an exit in a burning building. Shiro felt his heart breaking, and he did his best to soothe Lance by rubbing at the calloused skin of his hands with his own calloused thumb. 

“You - Lance, you love romance. You’ve said you’ve watched every corny rom-com there was before we came out to space. And you - you’re not stupid, Lance,” he murmured. “Why wouldn’t you.. why wouldn’t you assume that I was trying to - to ask you out, or something?” He hoped he wasn’t making Lance feel like a fool, but he thought he’d been rather obvious. Lance finally managed to focus his gaze back on Shiro’s face, and he looked like he was fighting hard to keep his countenance from falling apart. He sighed, his head tilting just slightly to the side and his eyes falling out of focus again.

“I noticed the extra attention, but I didn’t think that you’d ever like someone like me, so I convinced myself that there was nothing else behind it,” he whispered. Shiro’s breath hitched, then paused in his chest. 

“What do you mean ‘someone like you’?” he asked quietly, though he felt that he’d figured out the answer, and it was sitting heavy in his gut. 

“I’m not anything special. I mean, sure, I pilot Blue, but anyone can do that - Allura could take my place any time,” Lance said. “And  _you_ ,” he said emphatically, looking back to Shiro and cracking a weak, broken smile. “I’ve been in love with you for so long, but what chance did I have? What could  _you_  possibly see in a mediocre cargo pilot like  _me_?”

Shiro’s breath left his lungs, his stomach churning violently and his throat tight with emotion. He released Lance’s hands and reached up with his left hand to cradle his cheek. Lance clenched his eyes shut, a few more tears escaping. 

“You are a thousand times the man any cargo pilot could ever hope to be,” Shiro whispered. Lance’s face finally crumpled, and he grasped at Shiro’s wrist, flexing his fingers around it. “And even if you were a cargo pilot, how could that ever take away from everything else that you are?” Lance snorted, a fresh wave of tears falling.

“Like obnoxious-”

“Passionate,” Shiro interrupted.

“Never serious-”

“You find positivity in every situation.”

“I never know when to shut up-”

“Your mind never stops working.”

“And I can’t stop fucking crying when I’m trying to talk!”

“Feeling is hardly a flaw, Lance,” Shiro chastised gently, a smile creeping onto his face. Lance shook his head.

“I have  _nothing_  to offer you, Shiro!” He sounded like he was trying to be firm, but his voice simply cracked again. He pulled Shiro’s hand away from his face. “You are so - so  _you_ , and you could do so much better than a skinny little nobody from Cuba,” he sobbed. Shiro breathed in deeply, a small, patient smile on his face.

“There’s one pretty cool thing about being me, though,” he said. “Know what that is?” Lance shook his head. “I’m the only one who gets to decide who’s good enough for me to love.” Lance’s eyes widened. “And I think I’d decided on you a long time before I even realized it.”

This time it was Lance’s hands that reached out and clasped at Shiro’s. They were shaking and clammy when they touched at Shiro’s, and Shiro held them fast, keeping them steady and still. He twisted his body so he faced Lance entirely, and gently tugged on Lance until he shifted as well. 

“You love me?” Lance asked, his voice hardly even audible enough to be considered a whisper. Shiro brought Lance’s knuckles to his lips and kissed them, not breaking eye contact. 

“If it’s not painfully obvious by now that I do, then I guess I’ve got the rest of our lives to prove it. If you’ll let me, I mean,” he amended hastily. Lance’s eyes were wide, his mouth having fallen open slightly. 

“Are you-”

“ _Yes_ , Lance, I am,” Shiro said, his face pulling into a grin. He released Lance’s hands to once more cup his face, and he gently guided his face closer. He watched Lance’s face filter through so many emotions; it was almost as if every single thing Shiro had done to try and get Lance’s attention was sinking in, moment by moment, month by month, smile by smile. Recognition clicked into place like cogs in a machine and Shiro relished in watching Lance come to the beautiful realization that he was so, so loved. 

Without a sound, Lance fell forward against Shiro, his arms instantly wrapping around his neck. Shiro let his hand slide back into Lance’s hair and he guided their lips together. His grey eyes slid shut as he slanted his mouth against Lance’s and kissed him for all he was worth. Lance’s lips were soft and warm and a little wet with tears, and he thought briefly that maybe he should have been applying lip balm to ease how chapped his were from gnawing on them. Lance didn’t seem to care about the moisture of his lips, if his happy little sigh was any indication. Shiro dropped his hands to Lance’s waist and tugged him forward, encouraging Lance to move closer.

Lance took things a step further than Shiro imagined, but he certainly wasn’t complaining. The blue paladin crawled into his lap and wound his long legs around his waist, settling against him easily and comfortably. Shiro hummed contentedly into their kiss, wrapping his arms around Lance’s waist and holding him tight. Lance’s hands eventually found their way to the back of Shiro’s head, and he dug his long fingers into his short hair. Shiro chuckled into the kiss, and Lance followed suit until they broke apart, grinning widely at one another. Lance bent his head and touched his forehead to Shiro’s.

“I was so stupid,” Lance muttered. Shiro kissed him again, chaste and light.

“You’re hardly stupid, Lance. But you lack confidence,” he answered honestly. Lance flushed.

“I try not to bother anyone with it,” he mumbled. Shiro tightened his arms around Lance, pressing them closer together.

“First, you are  _never_  a bother. Not to me, not to anyone on this ship. Second,” he trailed off in order to kiss Lance again, deep and passionate. Lance hummed into the kiss, smiling against Shiro’s lips. “I get to help you work on it.” He kissed him again, quick but no less eager than before. “And I don’t care how many of these it takes-” he paused for another series of kisses, “or how often I have to tell you that you’re the most breathtaking person I’ve ever laid eyes on-”

Lance made a sound of embarrassment and buried his face into Shiro’s neck.

“-but I will do everything in my power to make sure you never forget that you are truly the most incredible person I’ve ever known,” Shiro finished in a whisper, his lips resting against the shell of Lance’s ear. He gently pulled back so he could look at Lance properly, framing his face with both of his hands. “Is that okay?” Tearfully, Lance nodded fervently. Shiro swiped at the tears with his thumbs and kissed Lance again, and again, and again.

The gulls screeched from the speakers, and the video had long since looped to the beginning again, trekking down an endless white beach. The waves crashed and receded from the shore, just as Shiro’s lips crashed and receded to and from Lance’s over and over again that night, until they were both too exhausted to do much else but rub noses and breathe each other in. 


	2. I Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> bottom shiro??? in MY good christian smut???

“Can’t you two even make it out of the training deck?” Pidge groused without venom. 

“More like make out  _on_  the training deck,” Lance chirped, his face broadened in a grin as Shiro’s hands on his hips tugged him close. 

“God, why,” Keith muttered, sheathing his bayard and clipping it back onto his belt. 

“You  _know_  why, Keith,” Shiro rumbled pleasantly, lowering his face to Lance’s mouth and kissing him lightly, briefly. Keith flushed hotly, scowling at Shiro. Pidge narrowed her eyes at Keith and smacked him soundly on the arm before leaving the training deck, her head held high. Hunk looked at Keith, one eyebrow raised and his face deadpan. Keith crossed his arms under the yellow paladin’s scrutiny and stomped off, pointedly going the opposite direction that Pidge had gone in. Hunk sighed, then glanced over at Shiro and Lance, who were making sappy doe eyes at each other.

“Do you really have to tease them like that?” he chastised. “They’re still figuring themselves out, and you know Keith has all the subtlety of a weblum in a china shop.” Shiro disengaged his lips from Lance’s and twisted his head to look at Hunk, huffing a little laugh when Lance took the opportunity to pepper his exposed throat with kisses.

“Pidge granted no mercy that night in the observatory. She was lewd,” Shiro said. “But it was also a nudge in the right direction.” Lance mumbled something that Hunk couldn’t hear, but it made Shiro chuckle. Hunk shook his head with a sigh.

“I think Lance is a bad influence on you, man,” he said good naturedly. Shiro smiled, then turned back to Lance, who cradled his face and brought their lips together again. Shiro heard Hunk retreat and listened for the telltale  _swish_  of the doors closing before he tightened his grip on Lance’s waist and backed them up against a wall, kissing him more fervently. Lance went along with it happily, grinning into the kiss and pressing on the back of Shiro’s head. Shiro’s lips parted and his tongue crept out to lick at the seam of Lance’s mouth, begging for acquiescence. Lance opened under him with a sigh and immediately greeted Shiro’s questing tongue with his own. 

Lance was  _very_  talented at kissing, as Shiro had discovered around a week and a half after their night in the observatory. That night had been far more innocent and chaste, their kisses light and their hands more occupied with holding faces and tugging blankets up. In the following week, they found they had very little time to themselves, as a distress signal had come through from a small cluster of planets. They had heard the stories of Voltron and had decided to overthrow the Galra, but hadn’t counted on a fleet of battleships that had been nearby. The planets, a group of four of them, were under heavy fire from the Galra fleet and had no airships of their own anymore with which to defend themselves. 

The paladins and their lions went to the aide of the planets, making quick work of the smaller fighter ships surrounding the larger cannon aircrafts. Shiro and Lance remained in their lions to take care of the three large cruisers, while Keith led Hunk and Pidge on the ground to clear out the remaining squadrants of Galra troops and sentry bots. The Blue and Black lions weaved around each other, firing their cannons in rapid succession. The black lion’s jawblade ripped an ion cannon clear off one ship, and Lance crowed gleefully through the comms. He whirled the blue lion around, dancing through space and using its tail to cut a spiraling gash through the metal hull of a ship. Blue blasted it with ice, and then another shot with her tail annihilated the ship.

“Good shot, Lance!” Shiro called, pride making his chest feel tight. Lance laughed freely, maneuvering Blue through another series of spins before bringing her around beside Black, allowing them to assault the final ship in tandem. Lance’s face flickered into view in the Black lion, grinning from ear to ear and breathing heavily, his face glowing slightly with the red and orange explosions of the crumbling ships. Shiro’s breath caught in his throat at the way Lance’s eyes crinkled and his perfectly soft lips stretched across his teeth. Flashing a smile of his own at his new boyfriend, Shiro jerked his head back toward the Castle of Lions, then tugged at Black’s controls until the lion spun around and bolted for the ship. With a whoop, Lance sped after him.

They parked their lions rather sloppily in the bay, just within the barrier of the ship. With a pat to Blue’s interior on the way out, Lance all but skipped out of his lion and tripped his way to Black, who lowered her great head to the floor and opened her maw. The ramp that made up her tongue extended and Shiro jogged down and right into Lance’s arms. He dropped his helmet to the ground and buried his face in what little of Lance’s neck that he could reach. The smile didn’t leave his face once as Lance laughed, bright and downright bubbly. The blue paladin pulled back just far enough to press his grinning mouth to Shiro’s, who promptly tightened his arms around that slender waist and kissed him breathlessly. Gloved hands ran through the short, dark hair at the nape of his neck and Shiro groaned, low and quiet, into the kiss. He broke it, their lips separated by barely a breath of space.

“We really work well together, Lance,” he rumbled quietly, his smile still in place. Lance held his face, staring up at him with a look on his face that was as easy for Shiro to read as a children’s book. Lance licked his lips, his expression suddenly flattening back out. Shiro furrowed his brow. “Babe, are you -?” Before he could finish voicing his concern, Lance’s lips quirked up into a smirk that would have made Keith proud and stepped forward. Shiro stumbled back a little, not really seeing how Lance could physically get any closer than what he was now. Then he felt Lance’s thigh press between his legs, and -  _oh_ , he thought stupidly.  _He’s fine. Very, very fine_.

Lance curled his fingers into the breastplate of Shiro’s armour and tugged once, sharply. There was more force behind it than Shiro would have thought, and he found himself jerked into Lance’s lips again. There was a hardness to them, this time. His previous kisses with Lance had been soft and sweet, maybe a little tongue here or there but nothing heavy or wild (yet). Now there was an edge to Lance’s kiss, a sharpness to the way he slanted his mouth against Shiro’s. Shiro’s fingers flexed against Lance’s hips, just above the belt of his armour, and Lance eagerly pressed against him further, his thigh rubbing into Shiro’s groin. The black paladin groaned softly into the kiss, and Lance took the initiative and slipped his tongue into Shiro’s mouth. Shiro made a louder noise this time, surprised and  _very_  happy as Lance’s tongue wasted no time in greeting Shiro’s and wrapping around it, coaxing it into action. 

Too many years had passed since he’d done this last. There were too many traumas between his last misguided affairs and his current, hard won relationship. A mountain of bodies and regrets separated him from his past, but no amount of grief could wipe clean and erase the long buried feeling of overwhelming lust. It had been too many years, of that he had no doubt, but the way Lance’s lips moved against his, the way his teeth nipped playfully at his tongue, the way his hips began to rock against him - he’d have gladly waited for it all over again. The way Lance kissed made him feel like falling to his knees like a penitent sinner and worship him. 

His knees buckled under the onslaught of Lance’s fervor, and it didn’t go unnoticed. The blue paladin pressed against him, walking him backward until they collided with the muzzle of Black, who rumbled her deadpan amusement in the back of Shiro’s mind. Lance’s thigh went right back between his legs and Shiro willingly parted them for him, reminding himself that they were both adults and that they could dry hump each other a few feet from empty space less than two weeks after their first kiss if they damn well felt like it. Lance continued to kiss him until his mind was reeling, whirling like the blue lion had done, and all Shiro could do was enjoy the ride and hope that he wasn’t just flailing his tongue around gracelessly. Lance finally broke the kiss and moved to Shiro’s jaw, and Shiro groaned again, immediately tilting his head back and lending Lance unrestricted access to as much of his neck as was uncovered. 

Lance was busying himself with licking beneath the edge of the flight suit when a roar snapped them out of their haze of lust. They looked up and out at the entrance to the bay to find their fellow paladins, in their respective lions, hovering just outside the forcefield. 

“ _Really?_ ”Pidge called through the speaker of her lion. Lance pulled away from Shiro’s neck and waved cheerfully. Shiro rolled his eyes, but wiggled his fingers at his fellow teammates anyway. Lance threw his head back and laughed, and Shiro felt warmth bloom in his chest, melting him from within. Grinning, he grasped Lance’s head and kissed his smile, reveling in the way Lance’s arms went right back around his waist. 

That had been two months ago, and they had since had plenty of time for Lance to demonstrate just how good at kissing he really was. Even pressed against the wall of the training deck, one of his legs hiking up Shiro’s thigh to hitch around his waist, Lance completely dominated the kiss, guiding Shiro’s tongue in a lurid dance in and out of each other’s mouths. Shiro, despite the great chunk of time he spent  _not_  kissing anyone, kept up and was more than content to pass the reins to Lance. They’d barely skimmed the surface of Lance’s self loathing in these past two months, but it twisted in Shiro’s guts every time he thought about it. Knowing how Lance felt, it always made Shiro’s chest flutter with happiness when Lance took charge and led him down whatever path he chose. Shiro’s left hand skimmed down Lance’s body and grasped the back of his thigh, holding his leg up by his waist and grinding their hips together. Lance’s lips stretched into a grin and Shiro groaned; he loved kissing Lance’s smile, and had promised himself months ago that he would do everything he could to keep that smile there, ready for him to lay his own lips on it. 

“ _Mmm,_ babe, we can’t stay here,” Lance breathed between kisses eventually. Shiro nipped at his lower lip for his blasphemous words but knew he spoke the truth. They had plans to meet the ruling council of Nycepta, and then tour the city and its vast markets. Normally this wasn’t something Shiro would mind doing, but Lance had been especially flirty all morning. Shiro didn’t mind PDA in front of their friends, but he was now in the mood for more than what their friends could witness. Shiro pulled away reluctantly, breathing a little heavily and feeling flushed. He released Lance’s leg and let it lower to the floor, and Lance stepped up close to him to compensate for it. “We can finish this later, promise.” He placed a light, chaste kiss against Shiro’s lips and then pushed away from the wall, walking Shiro backwards. 

Shiro mostly wanted to groan and stamp his feet like a petulant child, but he was always painfully aware of their responsibilities. He was eager for the evening, when they would retire to whatever rooms the council would provide them and curl up with Lance on a couch, kissing and cuddling until sleep beckoned them. 

—

After the meeting, which was by and large a very standard affair, they were turned loose for a few hours, until the evening feast commenced. Pidge dragged Hunk away to look at various robots and Keith followed them, very pointedly ignoring the leer Lance gave him. Shiro reached for Lance’s hand, smiling serenely at him.

“Come on, let’s do some shopping. Maybe we can find a dessert for later tonight,” he suggested. Lance tightened his fingers around Shiro’s prosthetic hand and dug his heels into the ground, refusing to move. Shiro paused and looked back at his boyfriend ( _his boyfriend_ ), his brow quirked in question. Lance smirked at Shiro, and the heat of his intense blue gaze set a small fire in the pit of his stomach. 

“I have a better plan,” Lance murmured as he backed up, tugging Shiro along with him in a direction that was very explicitly not in the direction of the market. It seemed to be, in fact, in the direction of the still and silent Castle of Lions. Which was empty of even the mice. Shiro grinned back at Lance and tripped forward, encouraging the blue paladin to lead the way.

Upon their entry into the castle, Lance shouted a loud ‘hello!’ and listened as his voice bounced around, grinning in appeasement when no voice answered him. He spun around in the hallway, grinning widely at Shiro, who laughed and dipped to wrap his arms around Lance’s waist, laughing. Lance laughed with him, his eyes crinkling in mirth as he buried his face against Shiro’s neck. Shiro’s smile didn’t fade in the least as he breathed in the scent of Lance’s lemon shampoo, his arms tightening around him. 

Two and a half months ago, he’d been driving himself up a wall trying to get Lance to open those pretty blue eyes and  _see_  him. Now he was being led by the hand, down a hallway by the whole man attached to those eyes, whose grin was enough to continue to stoke that fire within him. He tried to steer Lance into his own room, but Lance dragged him past it, tugging gently with both of his hands, shaking his head in what Shiro could only describe as a devious way. Laughing again, he allowed Lance to keep pulling him down the hallway. The blue paladin led him into the common lounge with its inset couches and soft pillows, smacking a hand onto the control panel to slide the door shut behind them. He laced his fingers with Shiro’s, both his metal one and those of flesh, and gave them a gentle tug, beckoning Shiro to step up close to him and kiss him once more. It had barely been a few minutes and Shiro was half starved for Lance’s mouth, kissing him like it had been a year since he’d last tasted his lips. 

Lance hummed appreciatively into the kiss and drew Shiro further into the room, walking backwards and tripping a little as he backed down into the inset. When the kiss broke, Shiro was staring down at Lance, a good foot and a half taller now that Lance was standing below him. The look Lance gave him, though, had him shivering all over. His pupils were blown wide, nearly overtaking the blue of his eyes that Shiro had fallen in love with over a year ago. He brought his hands up and cupped Lance’s grinning face, feeling his chest grow tight with affection again. What a sap he was. Two months in and he was already so far gone for this man. He supposed that two months didn’t mean much when he’d already been in love with him for a year now. He soaked in Lance’s eyes, his face, the feel of warm palms against his waist. Shiro didn’t believe in God, not anymore, not after what he’d seen, felt, done; still he knew, deep in the tattered remains of his soul, that Lance was nothing short of divinity in its purest form. 

“Shiro?” Lance murmured, bringing him back to the present. He focused his eyes again, a smile uncurling across his face lazily. He hummed in the place of asking what it was Lance was wondering about. Lance smiled softly at him, grasping at his hands and tugging him down into the inset with him. Shiro stumbled forward, knowing Lance would catch him and kiss him softly. Lance did indeed catch him, only taking a step backward as Shiro fell into him, wrapping long arms around Shiro’s waist and seeking his lips once more. 

Lance maneuvered them until they were on the couch, positioning Shiro parallel to the back of the couch. He straddled his waist, settling just below the bulge in Shiro’s pants. He kissed him again, humming as his tongue prodded at Shiro’s lips and begged for entrance. With a contented sigh, Shiro opened to him and drew Lance’s tongue into his mouth, massaging and caressing and reveling in the velvety warmth of it. Lance’s fingers fell to his chest and danced upward to the zipper of his shirt, toying with it, asking permission to drag it down and discard it. Shiro responded by wrapping one hand gently around Lance’s and guiding the zipper down. When Lance pushed the two sides of his shirt apart to reveal his chest, Shiro felt his breath catch in his throat at the look Lance gave him. He didn’t have a chance to think much on the appearance of the scars that littered his chest before Lance’s lips were on his again, kissing him dizzy. 

“I’m so lucky,” Lance murmured against his lips. “You’re so beautiful, Shiro.” 

Shiro flushed down to his collarbones; he’d never been called  _beautiful_  before. He would describe Lance and Allura as beautiful. Even Keith, all scowls and thick black hair, was beautiful. Shiro himself… Sure, he was aware that he wasn’t hideous. He’d been a normal young man with a mirror, once. Maybe he was even conventionally attractive, by social male beauty standards. Or, had been. He could only see flaws now, no matter how hard he tried to see past them. Every scar was a failure, and he loathed them almost as much as he loathed Zarkon. 

“Hey, get out of your head,” Lance drawled. Shiro looked up at him, blinking slowly. “Let me take care of you.” Shiro furrowed his brow, trying to sit up. Lance was the one prone to insecurities, he should be taking initiative and getting things going, instead of being too starstruck by affection to do anything but smile up at him like a simpleton. 

“I should -”

“Mm, nope,” Lance cut him off with a kiss. “You’ve been so good to me, Shiro.” He slid his hands down Shiro’s chest and torso, working his shirt off and discarding it over the back of the couch. “I want to be good to you, too.” 

Shiro wanted to sit forward, to tell him that he was, he truly was the best to him just by returning his feelings and standing by his side. He very nearly succeeded, too, until Lance lowered his mouth to Shiro’s chest and gave one nipple a hot, open mouthed kiss. Shiro gasped, his back arching, head pressing back into a soft pillow as sparks skittered across every nerve ending in his body. Lance moved back just enough so that Shiro could still feel hot breath against his chest, but he didn’t have to look down to see that Lance was smirking at him.

“Sensitive?” he asked lightly.

“I - yeah,” he said dumbly. None of his previous partners had played with his nipples beyond a cursory touch on their way down to other things, and he’d certainly never felt for them what he felt for Lance. The blue paladin hummed, a soft intro before he pressed the flat of his tongue to Shiro’s nipple and swirled. Shiro’s hips bucked, and he was sure that a combination of obscenely sensitive nipples and raging affection was going to send him into an early grave. Not a fleet of Galra warships, not Zarkon himself, not weird alien food and all the horrible things it could do to a human’s intestines. No, it’d be one profoundly beautiful young man and his own traitorous, high strung nipples. He felt his hips rolling up into Lance’s groin and noted with great satisfaction that the other man was just as hard as he was. Teeth grazed over his nipple, so gentle and sharp, and Shiro bit back a keen, filing it down to a groan just in time for it to gasp its way out of his throat. Lance kissed his way to his other nipple, where he gave it the same attention as its counterpart. Shiro’s eyes fluttered, trying to keep them open, trying (and failing) to stop the moaning gasps that spilled from his lips as Lance lavished his nipples with tender ministrations. 

When Lance finally granted a squirming, aroused Shiro mercy, he brought a hand up to touch Shiro’s chin. Shiro let his head loll back down, meeting Lance’s cloudy, lust filled gaze with one of his own. Lance’s lips were shiny with saliva and he breathed heavily, his body tense and tight. 

“Are you okay with this?” he asked somewhat breathlessly. Shiro blinked at him, his eyes widening. Here was Lance, playing him like a violin, striking every note with precision skill and accuracy, and he  _still_  thought enough to ask if this is what he wanted. Shiro felt that familiar tightening in his chest again, a great cresting wave of affection for Lance swelling within him and threatening to crash across his mind. “Because if you keep making those sounds-”

“I want this, Lance. Want you,” Shiro said, putting a great amount of effort into not sounding like a wrecked slut before he even got his pants down. “If you want to keep going, that is.” Lance grinned at him.

“I was born ready, babe,” he said confidently. Shiro rolled his eyes affectionately, but wiggled his hips nonetheless when Lance began to scoot down his legs, long fingers scratching at the belt of his pants, waiting for an invitation. Shiro rolled his hips, and Lance’s hands immediately went to work on his belt. He popped the button open and ran a finger down the zipper, applying light pressure, making Shiro groan in frustrated anticipation. He finally tugged it down, releasing some of the pressure Shiro felt overwhelmed by. Lance curled his fingers into the waistband of Shiro’s pants, glancing back up at Shiro. His gaze was unwavering, steady and sure, and once again asking permission. Shiro felt full to bursting with love and appreciation for Lance, and he covered his face with his hands and grinned widely, blushing furiously over his own feelings. He thrust upward again, just a little, indicating his desire to continue ( _get a move on, touch me, please_ ). 

Slowly, almost tortuously slowly, Lance pulled Shiro’s pants down, stopping to laugh as he remembered that boots had to come off first. Lance removed each boot and sock, kissing each ankle as he did, which only had Shiro’s blush deepening, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw little white explosions. 

“Lance, you’re a sap, you don’t  _have_  to do this,” Shiro mumbled affectionately as Lance kissed his way up Shiro’s thighs, hands running up the sides and snagging on his boxer briefs. He paused, just below the bulge of Shiro’s erection, and lifted his piercing blue gaze to look him in the eye.

“These past two months have been all about me, battling  _my_  insecurities and  _my_ issues,” he reasoned. He rocked forward a little a pressed a firm, dry kiss on Shiro’s clothed cock and Shiro very nearly bit into his metal knuckles to stop the groan that threatened to burst from his throat. “I couldn’t even figure out that you wanted to, like, hold my hand and shit.” Shiro snorted in aborted laughter, which bled into a strangled gasp as Lance slid his palm over his crotch. “So let me make this about  _you_.” Intense blue eyes remained focused on his face, and Shiro found himself weakened and fragile under them, helpless as a kitten. He also found himself enveloped in a warm safety that unfurled from Lance in waves, wrapping around him and leaving him feeling vulnerable and  _okay_  with it. 

“Like I could ever deny you anything,” he exhaled, speaking before he thought about it too much. Lance blinked at him, momentarily surprised, but he regained composure ( _how was even composed at this point?_ ) before he dropped the reins. He smirked at Shiro.

“Tell me no  _sometimes_ ,” he said. “Just not right now.” His hands gently lifted the boxer briefs away from Shiro’s body, then pulled them down, exposing his cock to the comparatively cool air of the castleship. “Because I’ve never wanted to do this more than I have right now.”

Suddenly, there was heat, wet, searing heat and a roaring noise in Shiro’s ears as Lance took the head of his cock into his mouth. He struggled to not thrust immediately into Lance’s mouth, bending his head backward and digging it into the pillows below him, his hands gripping the side and back of the couch with nearly enough force to tear the fabric. It wasn’t until he felt, heard,  _god, felt_ , Lance chuckle around the dick in his mouth that he realized that the loudness in his ears was more from his own hoarse shout than from a rush of blood to his head. 

Lance happily made his way to the base of Shiro’s cock, his lips inching down, his tongue wrapping and caressing and stroking around it. Shiro panted, barely suppressing a whine and not fully believing that the noises his body felt like making were actually coming from him. He could feel himself twitching in Lance’s mouth, and keeping his hips still was quickly becoming more difficult that a fight with a fleet and a half of Galra warships. He felt the tip of his cock bump against the back of Lance’s throat, and then move  _further_. Shiro groaned loudly as Lance deep throated him, biting on his lower lip and trying very hard not to whine. It was unbecoming of a leader, it was weak, it was-

Absolutely what came out of his mouth when Lance sucked, hard. 

Lance drew back, a satisfied grin on his shiny, swollen lips. He sat up and forward, repositioning himself just below Shiro’s cock again. Dazed, Shiro somehow found the strength to bring his arms up and place them on Lance’s strong thighs, squeezing them gently. He stared up at Lance, his gaze bordering on reverence as Lance crossed his arms at the hem of his shirt and pulled it up and over his head, tossing it elsewhere. He stared down and Shiro, his chest bare and exposed, and Shiro’s breath hitched in his throat. Lance was all broad shoulders and slender frame, blessedly accentuated by lean, ropy muscles born from constant training. He wasn’t bulky, but there was a strength there that had often surprised Shiro, and more recently, aroused him. His skin was dark all over, more indicative of heritage than of time spent in the sun. Smooth all over, with just a dusting of dark hair sprinkled around his chest, and then leading down into his pants. His abdominal muscles bunched and flexed with each breath he took, twitching with control.  

Shiro’s hands smoothed their way up Lance’s thighs and crept up his waist. Warmth bloomed beneath one hand, and, to his credit, Lance didn’t flinch when the cool metal of his prosthetic pressed against his side and slid up. He did shiver when thumbs brushed over his nipples, pitched his head back and sighed languidly. The smooth brown column of Lance’s neck was bared to Shiro, tempting him, beckoning him to lick it, suckle it, mark it up like they were a couple of horny teenagers at the homecoming football game, kissing beneath the bleachers. 

Lance leaned back down over Shiro, kissing him sweetly, and Shiro’s hands circled Lance’s back, drawing their chests together. Lance was impossibly warm against him and he quickly decided that this was his favourite physical feeling in the world. A warm, hard chest belonging to the man he loved and cherished more than anything else pressed against his quickly surpassed every other memory of any other physical touch he’d ever experienced. Lance wiggled against him, smiling into their kiss, and Shiro couldn’t-wouldn’t want to-suppress a smile of his own. Lance pulled back several moments later, somewhat breathless and looking extremely contented. He gripped Shiro’s hips with his knees and leaned off the side of the couch, groping for his coat and digging a bottle of lube out of the pocket. Shiro raised an eyebrow at him. Lance shrugged. 

“Maybe I planned this, maybe I just carry lube with me in case my excessively hot boyfriend decides he wants to get frisky.” He leaned down and pecked Shiro on the lips again. “The universe may never know.” Before he could pop the cap on the little bottle, Shiro threaded his fingers into Lance’s belt loops and tugged gently at them.

“Lose these first. I wanna see you,” Shiro requested, not even flushing at the lewdness of what he’d just asked. Lance blinked down at him and then grinned widely, setting the lube on Shiro’s sternum and reaching for his own fly. He popped the button and slowly pulled the zipper down, staring at Shiro the whole time. Shiro’s gaze, though, was fixed on Lance’s crotch, his fingers leaving the belt loops and pulling the denim away from Lance’s own boxers. Shiro slipped his thumbs in and grazed over Lance’s clothed and straining erection. Lance groaned, his head tipping forward, hair falling in his face, fingers twitching around the denim in his hands. Emboldened, Shiro wrapped his left hand around Lance’s shaft through the thin boxers, and Lance swore loudly, tipping forward, hands catching on Shiro’s chest, hips bucking forward. 

“Wait, wait,” Lance muttered breathlessly. He forced himself to stand, then pushed his pants down his slender hips. He went slowly in this, too, putting on a little show. Shiro whistled, two low notes of appreciation, and Lance bit his lip, flushing prettily. He toed off his shoes and socks, stepped out of his jeans, and then climbed onto the couch again. Shiro, his eyes glued on the glory between Lance’s thighs, spread his legs, dropping one leg off the edge of the couch so that Lance could settle between them. Lance settled on his knees, his cock jutting proudly from his body, hard and shiny at the tip from pre-come. Shiro’s mouth ran dry as he took it in; it was perfectly proportionate to Lance himself. Long, but not quite as slender as he imagined it, and curved upward just slightly. Shiro sat up, supporting himself on one elbow, and he reached forward with his left hand and gently grasped that beautiful cock. Lance keened, and Shiro couldn’t suppress his own groan - the heavy heat of it in his hand sending a fresh bolt of arousal surging through him. His own cock twitched and suddenly everything was going entirely too slow for him to handle any longer. He grabbed up the bottle of lube from his chest and twiddled it between his thumb and forefinger, smirking suggestively. Lance reached for the bottle, wrapping his hand around Shiro’s at the same time and leaning down to kiss him once more. Shiro squeezed Lance’s cock impatiently, and Lance groaned into the kiss.

“What is it you always say? Something about patience and focus?” Lance mused. Shiro nipped playfully at his lower lip. 

“I don’t want to focus. I want to feel you,” he murmured. Lance took the bottle from Shiro’s hand and finally popped the cap on the lube. He caressed Shiro’s left leg until he got a hand under it and tugged. Shiro lifted his leg and allowed Lance to guide it onto his shoulder, and he took his own initiative and rested his other leg on the low back of the couch, opening and spreading himself before Lance. He felt a little exposed, but the hungry look Lance was giving him made him feel warm all over, and pleased that he could make his boyfriend go a little cross eyed. Lance didn’t break eye contact as he squeezed some lube onto his fingers, and Shiro held his breath in anticipation as Lance lowered his fingers between his thighs. 

He felt cool, slick fingers trail over his balls, a thin line, a tease, as they continued their journey southward. The tip of Lance’s middle finger found Shiro’s hole, and he hummed as it circled the dark pucker, applying pressure and allowing the muscle to relax naturally. Shiro felt his hips gently rocking from side to side, completely unbidden. Lance’s finger shifted with him, adapting as easily as the element he represented. Shiro’s eyes fell shut and he gave himself over to Lance’s gentle touch, content for the moment with the pressure around the outer muscles of his hole. A moment passed before he felt the tip of Lance’s finger breach him, slowly pressing inward an inch before withdrawing. Shiro moaned, rocking his hips downward as Lance pressed his finger in again, going up to his knuckle. Lance’s finger was slender, and while Shiro had no complaints about his boyfriend’s beautiful hands, he found himself wanting more. 

“Lance, I – another, please,” he sighed. Lance hummed his acquiescence and gently pushed another finger in to join. Shiro groaned and gyrated his hips in a little circle, feeling much closer to where he wanted to be. Lance twisted his fingers as he fucked them in and out, never roughly, never too fast. Slow and deep and thorough until Shiro was panting his desire for more. Lance rotated his wrist, applying pressure to the ring of muscle as he fingered Shiro in little half circles, massaging and relaxing the muscle further. He paused to scissor his fingers once or twice, and then went back to gently but firmly stroking the muscle. When his hips began to reflexively thrust downward, seeking more, Lance obliged, adding a third finger. Shiro felt it slip in with very little discomfort, thanks to Lance’s careful and thorough work. 

Three of Lance’s fingers were inside of him and Shiro’s mind reeled from it. Three months ago, all he wanted to do was set those fingers between his and hold them gently. Now they were buried inside of him, driving him wild, setting him on fire and letting him burn. They were buried up to the knuckles of Lance’s fist, stretching and probing. Shiro knew what they were searching for, hoped they found it soon, before his whole body melted into the couch. 

He felt it, felt the very tips of Lance’s fingers go near something inside of him. He felt the heat licking in the pit of his stomach, just barely there, and he whined again, bearing down on Lance’s fingers and silently begging them to just press forward and show him stars that were so different than the ones hovering in the still of space. He heard Lance chuckle, felt a warm hand on the leg draped over the back of the couch, felt a hot kiss on the side of his knee. Shiro picked his head up and squinted indignantly at Lance, though he doubted he looked very intimidating with three fingers shoved up his ass and his legs spread wide. Lance nuzzled into his knee, peeking down at him with a lazy grin on his face. Shiro pursed his lips in a pout, taking some small satisfaction in the way Lance’s eyes widened. His smugness was short lived, as Lance pressed his fingers forward suddenly, pressing on the knot of nerves deep within.

Shiro shouted, head punching backward into the pillows again as every nerve ending in his body lit up, heat caterwauling up and down his stomach, bunching his muscles and bucking his hips. He panted, gasping for air as he felt Lance’s fingers press into his prostate again, more gently this time. He moaned languidly, arching his back as Lance pulled his fingers out of him as soothingly as he could. It was a struggle to pick his head up, a battle to open his eyes, and he nearly lost the war when he took in the sight of Lance’s wide, lust filled eyes and parted lips, staring at him like he were holy. He watched Lance fumble with the cap to the lube, squeezing more onto his fingers and then dropping it carelessly to the floor. He brought his hand down to his own cock and gave it a few compulsory strokes to coat it in lube, biting his lip hard as he applied it liberally. 

As Lance inched forward on his knees, Shiro dropped his leg from the back of the couch and hitched it up on Lance’s waist. Lance glanced down at it, almost as if in surprise, then grinned back up at Shiro, grabbing at it with his free hand. His right hand, still holding his cock, guided himself to Shiro’s hole. He released his grip on Shiro’s thigh and leaned down over Shiro’s body, supporting himself on one hand. He leaned in close to Shiro’s face and kissed him, their lips dry from panting. Shiro kept his eyes trained on Lance’s as he pulled back and slowly pushed the plush head of his cock into him. By the time the head of Lance’s cock was fully ensconced in Shiro’s tight heat, his eyes had rolled into the back of his head and fluttered shut again. His throat was bared to Lance as his head fell back, and his leg twitched on Lance’s hip. 

There was barely any discomfort thanks to Lance’s meticulous preparations. Waves of fire spread through Shiro, originating at his stretched entrance and flowing over him, barely receding before pushing back up his stomach. By the time the solar flares within him reached his head, he was groaning Lance’s name as a prayer and Lance himself had bottomed out, his hips pressed flush against Shiro’s. Lance’s harsh breath in his ear was like the rush of the ocean without any of its soothing coolness. Everything was hot, like they’d suddenly been plunged into a pool of lava. Shiro went to war with his muscles again, forcing himself to tilt his head forward and look at Lance, who looked as fucked out and overwhelmed as Shiro felt. Lance hovered over him, arms braced on either side of Shiro’s neck, and Shiro brought his hands up to frame Lance’s face, drawing him down into a kiss. His left leg, which had been to this point resting on the floor, shakily lifted itself to rest around Lance’s waist, urging him further forward. Lance groaned and buried his head into Shiro’s neck. Another heavy moment passed, and when the fire inside Shiro eased away from behind his eyes, he gave his hips a little wiggle.

Lance picked his head up, and Shiro swallowed thickly, the heat in Lance’s gaze almost as intense as the heat that curled wildly in his belly. Slowly, Lance pulled out until his head was just barely within, and then pressed forward again. Shiro groaned, shuddering around Lance’s cock and grinding his hips up as Lance drove home. Lance swore once, a heavy expletive breathed out sluggishly, and then began to thrust. He set a steady pace, his thrusts long and deep and smooth, his hips moving steadily. 

Shiro wanted to meet him thrust for thrust, wanted to lift his hips and grind into him when they met, but he felt like he’d completely lost control of his body. He gave himself over to the fire Lance had sparked, his limbs heavy and made of wood for all they were consumed. The flames licked up his spine again, prickling behind his eyes once more and blinding him to everything but Lance’s blue eyes boring into him. His breath crackled in his lungs, or maybe it was the rattling moans he was spilling instead of a difficulty in drawing breath. Every thrust was slow and deep, filling him entirely with Lance, Lance,  _Lance_. 

When the blessed curve of Lance’s cock dragged in a long, slow thrust across his prostate, Shiro choked out a desperate cry as spots danced in his vision, little stars that quickly usurped even the beauty of those in deep space. Shiro groped at Lance’s back haphazardly, his fingers trembling as his boyfriend, his  _lover_ , pushed and pulled his cock over his prostate until he was near insensate with pleasure. His abdominal muscles jumped and twitched with every assault his nerves endured, and yet Lance’s pace never increased, his thrusts were no less deep. 

The heat within him was nearly intolerable, and he could feel it curling low in his belly, forming a tight ball, waiting for Lance to dump a waterfall of jet fuel on him and send him spiraling into oblivion. But Lance kept him at the edge, his thrusts brushing over his prostate less consistently now, surprising him with sunbursts of pleasure when he struck gold. Shiro couldn’t tilt his head back any further, and Lance’s face hovered just above his, panting harshly and kissing him when he found half a breath to spare. Shiro whimpered into each kiss, his tongue darting out in an attempt to deepen them and only really succeeding in licking Lance’s lips. 

Lance brought one hand to Shiro’s cheek and kissed him hard, covering his mouth fully and breathing hard through his nose, eyes open and gaze penetrating. Shiro moaned into the kiss, his hands pressing into Lance’s back and his legs tightening around his waist. On his next thrust, Lance lowered his body, trapping Shiro’s cock between their stomachs and letting friction, heat, and sweat work their tricky, carnal magic. 

Shiro’s eyes widened, his lips still sealed against Lance’s, and his orgasm came riding a wave of incandescent fire and ice, stealing the breath from his lungs to fuel its rage. His legs seized around Lance’s hips, holding him in place as liquid mercury rushed through his veins, blinding and deafening him to everything but the cock that remained within him. His eyes rolled and he might have screamed into Lance’s mouth, but the conflagration in his blood was all he could make sense of. The last pulses of his cock were nearly painful in their exquisite tense and release, but even that pain was a warm welcome as he slowly began to drift back down to his body. 

The kiss had been broken, which was why he was able to pant as harshly as he was. He blinked slowly several times before his eyes came back into some semblance of focus, and he was greeted by the face of God.

Lance.

Sweat beaded across his dark forehead and he was breathing just as harshly as Shiro. He looked spent and satisfied, and after an experimental wiggle of his hips, he drew the conclusion that Lance had found his release at some point during Shiro’s adventures in euphoria. One of his hands traced down Shiro’s cheek, and he grinned down at him. Instinct drove Shiro to smile back, because he knew for a fact that his brain was currently incapable of any executive function more advanced than breathing and blinking. He was pleasantly sleepy, he found – not fucked out, not sore and exhausted. Content. Warm. Happy. Safe.

Loved.

Lance pulled out of him, which made him exhale sharply, and twisted around to grab a blanket that had been left on the couch from a few nights prior. Shiro sat up a little, reaching for the blanket as Lance handed it to him to spread across them. Lance’s arms wrapped around his shoulders and Shiro buried his feet under Lance’s thighs. The deep wellspring of Lance’s love washed over him, cool blue water to soothe where there had been fire only minutes before. Cool and warm all at once, and Shiro felt that trying to understand the complexity of that relationship would come to him eventually. Maybe another two months from now. Maybe next year. Maybe the human consciousness wasn’t meant to grasp it entirely. 

Maybe he was okay with that, as long as Lance was the one lighting him aflame and then gently dousing him in affection in the aftermath of the storm that was the blue paladin’s lust. 

“I love you,” Shiro heard Lance murmur, quiet and soft in the hush of the lounge. Shiro sighed, fulfilled in a thousand different ways, and he curled further into Lance, breathing deeply and wholly incapable of stopping the grin from spreading across his face like a different kind of fire. 

“I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm apparently just a shance ho with no shame ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ i was already going to write shance smut, but [this](https://jyonzu.tumblr.com/post/165346029888/call-me-vanilla-but-i-just-really-love-the-idea-of) is what inspired me to write bottom shiro being taken care of and canoodled tenderly. the whole post is one big mood.
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr](https://www.klancin-with-myself.tumblr.com)

**Author's Note:**

> Lance having negative levels of self confidence is my favourite trope.
> 
> Second chapter of smut to follow, which will change the rating. 
> 
> Did you like it? Drop a kudos or a comment! Mindless consumption of fic kills the authors. (im trying to start a kudos based movement just let me live okay)
> 
> [klancin-with-myself](http://www.klancin-with-myself.tumblr.com) is my tumblr. hit me up home slices. you can also reblog the fic from there!
> 
> thank you to the ggb for inspiring the title of this. I'd be lost without you fuckers, and I love you all so much.
> 
>  
> 
> _keep going for smut_


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